Gardening

I've been working outside a bit when the weather cooperates. I've mown the lawn three times and cleaned up under the existing plantings. I've also replaced a shrub that was destroyed this past winter, planted a container (well partially planted it), a rose and some rhubarb. I have more to do, but here are some pictures of what it's like now.


This is the view from the parking area to the back of the lot. The tree line in the distance close to the white house is the end of my property. The tent is set up because Mabel decided sometime in the winter that I needed to be punished for something and peed on the tent bag and now it's being aired out. I think I'll leave it up for a while...


A container garden underway.


There are three plants here beside the driveway - two spreading juniper type, and the one closest to the back yard is perhaps some type of lily. I'm looking forward to seeing what grows out of the greenery. (It's hard to see because it is barely above the grass level and almost the same colour.)


The driveway from the front. I replaced the spreading juniper closest to the street - you can see it just beyond the lattice. The cedar in front of the porch is in bad shape, and the one matching on the other side of the house is dead, so I'll be replacing them, but I don't know with what yet.


You can see most of the front plantings in this view. I should have cropped the street from the picture. :-(


I don't know what the shrubs at the front (the yellow ones) are, but once they flower I'll be able to better search for them. You can see the dead cedar just to the left of the verandah.




This is the bleeding heart - or what's left of it. It was so congested with grass and weeds that it was quite weak to stand on its own. And the day after I cleaned it out we had a lovely, very windy day and more stalks were lost. But most of it survives and now it's supported well.









This Iris is such a lovely colour! It, too was clogged up with grass and weeds. Some of the rhizomes were rotten and I took them out, but there is still an area that looks like it is infected with something. More research to do.




















The left rose bush is much smaller (as in fuller - both are the same height) than the other so maybe it is younger. The leaves are a lighter green which leads me to believe that these roses will be a light pink or cream. We'll see! The other is a much fuller rose bush - maybe it's been around a bit longer than the other. These roses will probably be a deep pink or red. It will be interesting to see what they turn out to be.



You can see where I've dug out a garden plot beside the shed. My rhubarb is there and so is About Face, and two of the hummingbird feeders are there too. I'm pretty sure the hummers have been around; in fact I think I was dive bombed while I was digging in the dirt there! (either that or it was a VERY big bee !!)


And here she is - About Face! She's growing!!! ^_^

A few other pictures of the trees and flowers:













Honeysuckle ( I think) on the side and Phlox and lilacs at the end of the property.















Some new growth on the pine tree at the end of the property - lots of this all over the tree.

















These tall trees form a nice barrier of sorts so everyone has some privacy.


There is a lot of this stuff underneath the trees and I'm not familiar with it. the closest that I can come from looking in my reference book is Joe Pye weed. It's actually quite attractive - saw toothed leaves bordered in red with a fleshy red stem. I'm really looking forward to seeing flowers on this one.

Well, that's it for today. I have a few more things to plant - some thyme and basil and some strawberries...maybe.

note (in preview the text and photos are not lining up properly - I'll fix it eventually but I'm off to bed now.)

Making progress

Progress is being made! Sloooooowly, though. April is such a busy month and there is a lot to do - getting ready for markets, income tax (ugh!), a training course meeting is coming up, and of course trying to keep up with the changes in the weather.

However, in and around all that, I've got half the room walls crack filled, half the moulding sanded and the holes filled and the wherewithal to do the rest. I also have the window treatments ready to go up, but they don't go up until the last thing. The switch plates and outlet covers are ready too - all I have to do now is get it done. I have a plan in my head as to what goes where (bookcases, chairs, stereo etc.), so that's a good thing! And today I bought the paint for the walls. Whoo Hoo!! I even bought one of those zippered plastic doorways to try to keep the bulk of the dust out of my bedroom and the spare room (which will be tackled after the library is done). We'll see how well that works!

Now, however, I have heel balm to make, so the work in the library will have to wait for another day.

Finally - Clean walls!

The wallpaper is gone and the walls have been washed clean of dirt and old wallpaper paste. I didn't find any more "surprises" like the outlet I found last time, but the area around the working outlet on the outside wall needs some repair, so that will be on my do first list. I also found evidence that there had been some repair way back when, because under the three layers of paper and one of paint, there are actual plaster repairs. And in one corner I found evidence of yet another layer of wallpaper - must have been the original stuff.





And I finally found out when my house was built - 1946 - so it's 63 years old, not 70+. Typical post-war house for this area I suspect.

As I thought, the walls need a fair amount of repair and I'm all geared up with plaster and drywall mud, drywall tape and sandpaper. Now I suppose I'll have to get to it! LOL

More to come!

Back at the wallpaper stripping!

I finished the wall where the hall door is - lots more cracks and so on - nothing that I didn't expect. However there was a bit of a surprise in the shape of a square "hole" in the area of the old chimney. I think it must have been a clean out or something. For some reason it wasn't closed off very well and the "hole" looks almost like a bowl on its side.

Here's a close-up:



















The green wall in the photo following was easy - it's drywall with one coat of paint and the vinyl wallpaper over that. What a change from the plaster and the two additional layers of old wallpaper!



There was another surprise too. I had noticed an area on the far wall (to the right of the window) where it appeared there was another "hole" under the wallpaper but I couldn't imagine what it would be for. No chimney there, no cable outlet - no nothing! Imagine my surprise when I uncovered this:


I have an electrician friend and I'm going to see if he can remove that thing for me. Goodness knows how old it is.

I've also been replacing the hardware on the cupboards in the kitchen. I will be painting there too, but the painted over handles were really annoying me so I've replaced them. You can see the paint on the gold toned handles ...














I've also replaced some of the hinges (more to go) and here are pictures of the before and after:



That's it for now. More to come in the days ahead. :-)

I got some advice on the old chimney - it would be a very big job to accomplish, and probably hellishly expensive for me. So I'm going to leave well enough alone. So that means I can go ahead and do any painting/wallpapering that I want to do without worrying about having to re-do or fix later.

I'm in the process of working on the next wall in the library and I'll have pictures up later today.

I also will have some pictures of the cupboards in the kitchen - I'm subbing out the current hardware for something I like more. Even without painting the cupboards yet they look better.

Stay tuned!

Well! I have the first section of the walls in my library stripped down to the plaster. From the outside in there were: vinyl wallpaper, light green paint, pink textured stripe wallpaper, and green stripe/pink rose medallion wallpaper. The last wallpaper was pasted right on the plaster - no paint or primer at all. Here are some photos of the process:


































You can see the various layers in the photos. Notice the darker area on the plaster in the photo with the ceiling moulding in it - I think there was a roof leak at one time, but obviously that has been taken care of. Also, it looks like the moulding was put on right on top of the wallpaper. There was even a border on top of the first layer - the one with the roses on it, but I couldn't get a good picture of it. Maybe as I do the rest of the room I can get a better look at it. It had only about an inch and a half showing below the moulding and the rest of it was beneath it. You can also see the darker paint under the lower moulding by the door - originally dark brown - or what can be seen under the white. And NOT that puke brown the quarter round has been painted!

Here are some pictures of the wall after the paper is gone and it's been cleaned. I found some Natura stuff at Home Hardware that doesn't need to be rinsed off like TSP does. It seems to work ok. I also got some primer and drywall compound to fix the numerous holes. If you look close you might be able to see the hair (horsehair I think) in the plaster! You can also see the cracks in the wall above the doorway. This is due to the old original chimney that was closed off but not removed. It's weighing down the structure and, of course, creating those cracks. I'm looking into seeing what would be involved in getting it removed.






Please excuse the lame layout - I'm not good at this, but I'm trying to get better!

Here is my house:


See - small one! I'm going to do one room at a time and finish it before I move on to the next.

The first room on the drawing board is the utility room upstairs. I'm surmising this was originally a bedroom, but at some point a new bathroom was added which reduced the size of this room and changed its purpose because the only way to get to the bathroom is through this room. So now it's not a very good bedroom, but it will make a lovely library/sitting room. One of the previous owners removed the door to the room (it's downstairs in the basement) so there is no chance for much privacy.



This is the wallpaper and the "new" doorframe into the bathroom. I'll post other pictures as I go. One thing that is of a concern is the number of holes in the walls; the previous owners packed in a hurry and didn't take the time (they didn't have the time to tell the truth) to fix all the holes - and there are many. I expect all the walls in this room except the wall adjoining the bathroom are plaster, but we'll see.